


Stubbornness is a turtle trait

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Bay Movies)
Genre: 2016-verse, Aftermath of Violence, Brotherly Bonding, Brotherly Love, Doctor Donatello (TMNT), Exhaustion, Family Dynamics, Gen, Good Older Sibling Leonardo (TMNT), Hurt Raphael (TMNT), Sleepiness, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:48:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24753445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: The short space of time after patrol is always a highly-strung and stressful time for the turtles, full of exhaustion and anxiety and the nerves of the night, and sometimes it's nice to debrief with everyone and give their designated-medic a break for once.Besides, it's only a little crack in Raph's shell. How hard can it be? Leo can handle it, Donnie doesn't need to worry about something so simple as pouring resin in a shell. But nothing is ever as it seems with this family.
Relationships: Leonardo & Raphael (TMNT)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 102





	Stubbornness is a turtle trait

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Caprisum](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Caprisum).



> This fic is dedicated to @Caprisum, who left me so many nice comments that made my day! This is just a public thank you, and an excuse to write more TMNT fics. I know you spoke a lot about liking the way I do Casey, and he was going to be involved in this fic a little more, but I couldn't come up with a good enough idea with him, and I didn't want to force him into somewhere that he didn't belong, so he's just kinda in the background while the turtles get their spotlight haha.
> 
> The idea from this came a little from reading things where people get annoyed when fic authors and fan-artists depict Donnie as the designated medic/doctor and make him stay up at all hours of the night and get sleep-deprived and all that (even though that's pretty much how he is in canon, all the way from 2003 to now, if any of you remember 2007 Donnie, you know), and that kinda struck a nerve with me, so this is just my response to that. I felt like I needed to justify why I write the turtles the way I do and needed to change it up a bit. Just for this fic at least. But thanks in advance for reading, and I hope you enjoy it!

Leo entered the med-bay last after Mikey had already been seen and Casey had collapsed face-first onto the couch cushions, a bandage wrapped around his left knee. Raph was in there with Donnie, complaining as he tended to do, and when Leo walked in he suppressed a sigh, prepared for the familiar sight of Raph forcibly placed on the observation bed they had salvaged from the junkyard with Donnie fretting over him and trying to take care of all the suspected injuries he suffered during their patrol tonight, and he prepared himself for the speech that he had memorized for times like this.

Though he was surprised to encounter Raph, standing in the corner with his arms crossed, covered in bandages, and Donnie on the observation bed, one leg tucked under him as he fitted a brace around his shoulder. “I just can’t believe him,” Raph was complaining, and it soon became obvious that while Raph was complaining as he usually did, it wasn’t about Donnie patching him up. “He could have gotten himself killed tonight. If we weren’t there, he would have been in a world of trouble. Where does he get off, pulling stunts like that? Is he trying to impress us?”

Laughing, Donnie shook his head at Raph. “I think he just wants to feel included. It’s not his fault that he was born without the biological advancements that we have. What he lacks in shell and scale, he makes up for with passion.”

“Yeah, he lacks skill and smarts too,” Raph grumbled. “The moron is lucky that he made it out of that damn fight with just a dislocated kneecap.”

“Well, I thought it was impossible to find someone as foolish and reckless as you, but now I think that you’ve met your match,” Donnie grinned.

“Alright, alright,” Raph rolled his eyes. “Are you done yet? I want to get this over with.”

“Almost,” Donnie said, mood growing sombre. “If you give me a few more moments, I’ll be done with this, and then I’ll deal with the rest of you.”

Leo took that opportunity to walk into the room and interrupt their conversation by knocking on the wall to announce his presence. “What’s going on here? You two should be in bed. It’s been a long day. Casey and Mikey have the right idea.”

“We’re just on our way out,” Raph said. “I was just waiting for Donnie to finish bracing his shoulder before he patched up the cracks in my shell. Then we were probably going to head to bed. I’m sure you’ll have us up early tomorrow morning for some sort of pointless training.”

“What happened to your shoulder?” Leo frowned as Donnie stood up from the table and shook out his arm, one hand on his shoulder, rotating the joint in a circle.

“Nah, nothing,” Donnie said. “Misjudged a movement and a Foot soldier nearly ripped it out of the socket, but I’m good. I’m going to have a look at Raph’s shell then head to bed. I’m beat.”

Leo watched as Raph swapped places with Donnie on the table, clenching his jaw at the pain radiating through his shell with every beat of his heart. As Donnie began pulling a special kit from the shelving unit that Leo recognized, he stepped in. “Why don’t you head to bed, Don? I can fix him up. It’s only his shell.”

Donnie looked at him strangely. “Uh- are you sure?”

“Absolutely. If it were something like stitches, I’d let you handle it,” Leo said. “But I can tape up his shell. I’ve watched you do it enough times anyway, and whatever I do wrong you can fix in the morning. But you should get some rest. Even if you don’t go to bed, you should just go sit on the couch and keep Mikey entertained or something. It looks like he’s almost finished his game. I’ve got it from here.”

Shrugging, Donnie swapped positions with Leo and handed him the kit that held the shell resin and bandages and tape. “Alright, if you’re sure. But I’ll be just outside if you need me, alright? This is the worst one-” he said as he tapped on a thick crack in the centre of Raph’s shell with his nail. “-so take special care with it. I’ll check it myself later, but you know, it’s better if you get it right the first time.”

“He’s got it, Don,” Raph placed a heavy hand on Donnie’s head, affectionately rubbing his thumb against his temple before roughly shoving him away. “Get out of here.”

On his exit, Donnie shrugged off his heavy pack and left it beside the door, resting against the wall and hidden partially under the desk. He rolled out his shoulders as he was free from the added weight that always hung from his shoulders. “Alright,” he relented, one hand on the shoulder covered in bandages. “If you need help, don’t hesitate to ask, alright? Don’t be a hero, for once in your damn lives. I’ll… I’ll be just out here.”

They watched him go in silence, and when he was finally out of the room and creeping towards the couch where Casey was still fast asleep and Mikey was finishing up the final level of his game, silently celebrating and wiggling around in his seat as Donnie approached. They broke out into quiet laughter as soon as Don was far enough, as Raph spun around on the bed and Leo began to dig through the case. “He probably doesn’t know what to do with himself now that we’ve kicked him out of here,” Raph chuckled. “He’ll probably go raid the kitchen or something just to give himself something to do.”

“Give him a little bit of credit. He’s not Mikey,” Leo said as he pulled out the container of resin and a plastic cup from the kit. He pushed things aside as he looked for something to stir it with. “He’ll probably find a book or something. He gets too far into a book and we’ll never hear from him again.”

Chuckling, Raph shifted in his seat as he tried to get comfortable. While it was a bed, it was a bed they had salvaged from the junkyard and Donnie had reinforced with welded metal plates to support their weight. It wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world. “That’s probably true. Or he might find something to tinker with. Keep his hands busy.”

Looking around the med-bay, Leo found a little metal stirrer and plucked it from the table before he poured some of the stiff resin into the cup and stirred it into compliance with the metal stick. He didn’t want to think about what it was supposed to be for or where it had been. He ran his hand over the crack in Raph’s shell, a shell already filled with nicks and cuts and cracks and basically held together by sticky tape and bandaids. “How did you even get this, anyway? I didn’t see you get hit that bad.”

“I took a hit for Casey,” Raph said. “That’s what we were complaining about before you got here. He wasn’t paying attention and when I tried to get him out of the way, I was backed up to the edge of the building and a damn Foot ninja kicked me off the roof,” Leo winced. “It didn’t hurt when it happened, but I didn’t enjoy the climb back up to the fight, let me tell you.”

“You need to stop using your shell for things,” Leo chided as he began to smear the resin over the crack on Raph’s shell. “You’ve got enough cracks as it is. You need to be careful.”

“If we weren’t supposed to use our shell, we wouldn’t have one,” Raph objected. “Nature knows what it's doing. All turtles have shells.”

“Yeah, but not all turtles were turned into mutants and given intelligence and devoted their lives to the martial arts,” Leo muttered as he concentrated. He knew from experience that he had to get the resin within the crack to bind the shell together so it could heal properly, and the last thing he needed was for it to dry and for Donnie to have to re-do it in the morning.

Raph snorted. “I think that’s going a little too far. I don’t know ‘bout you, but I wouldn’t consider Mikey as having ‘intelligence’.”

Leo chuckled. “Point taken,” he said. They fell into a companionable silence for a moment, a rare moment of peace between them, and Leo relished in it until he felt the need to break it. “Are you really mad at Casey?”

For a moment, Leo wasn’t sure if he was going to receive and answer, but then Raph heaved a sigh so deep that Leo could feel it where he was pressed up against his shell. “No. No, I’m not. Donnie’s right, he probably just does stupid shit to feel included. But I don’t know how to make him realize that he’s only human and that he can’t be doing that crap.”

“It’s very hard to talk sense into Casey. I have learned that from experience,” Leo said. “But he doesn’t mean any harm. He just wants to help us out. It’s not his fault that he’s a knucklehead.”

“Knucklehead is putting it nicely,” Raph snorted, rolling his shoulders out. “I just wish he realized that if he gets hurt, it’ll end a lot worse for him than it would for us. The Foot never go lightly, and just because we look like it never hurts us doesn't mean that it doesn’t actually hurt.”

“He’ll learn,” Leo said. “We did. I mean, it took us a while, but we did.” He paused as he put away the resin and reached for the tape. “I thought Mikey did a good job today. He was everywhere at once, and for the first time in a long time, I think, he actually took it seriously. And I don’t think he got hurt much either, so that’s always a bonus.”

“Yeah, and he actually shut up for once,” Raph joked. “But he did well. I think Donnie was glad that he didn’t have too many people he had to fix up tonight. I think he’s grateful for you doing this, too.”

“Well, if you were just a little more careful during flights, then nobody would have to do this,” Leo pointed out, and Raph made a grunting sound in his chest, and Leo could imagine him rolling his eyes at him. “I know I can’t stop you, but it would be one less thing to worry about. If only for the supplies. If you’re cracking your shell every other week, we’re going to run out of resin and tape very quickly, and can you imagine having to explain to April what she has to get online? Or, god forbid, _Casey_? That guy can hardly navigate his way out of a paper bag let alone the portion of the internet that deals with turtle shell care and repair.”

Raph groaned. “Point taken. The last thing I want to think about is Casey calling Don at three in the morning trying to figure out what colour box to get or some shit.”

“Believe me, if Casey calls Donnie at three in the morning for anything short of a life-threatening emergency, I’m going to explain to him, in painstaking detail, how important Donnie’s beauty-sleep is,” Leo said and took pleasure in the way Raph tried to stifle his laugh behind his fist and mask it as a cough, turning his face away and smiling at the wall, but Leo had good intuition with these sorts of things, and he knew better than to think that Raph was merely turning to cough into his fist. Pulling away from his shell, Leo looked over his work one last time before he turned away and began putting things back where they belonged on Donnie’s intricately categorized workbench. “That should be it. I mean, I’m no Donnie, but it’s the best I can do. He’ll have to look it over. But for now, just take it easy and let that dry, and try not to ram yourself shell-first into any buildings in the very near future, and you should be fine.”

Raph raised a hand to his bicep and rolled out his shoulders, cracking his neck and flexing the muscles under his shell. When there wasn’t any pain, he grunted and stood. “Thanks, Leo. Not bad for a first-timer.”

“Thanks for not giving me a hard time about it,” Leo replied. “Maybe if you shut your mouth and do that more often, things would be a lot more peaceful around here.”

“And I just rescinded my thanks,” Raph said with a sigh, and Leo laughed. Raph rubbed at his wrist while he watched his brother rearrange things on Donnie’s desk, trying to put everything back the way he found it and probably failing miserably. “You sure know how to kill a mood.”

“I learnt it from you,” Leo laughed and threw his arm over Raph’s shoulders, and surprisingly, Raph didn’t move away. “Let's go see what kind of trouble the rest of the guys have gotten into, huh?”

“I wouldn’t put it past them to have already started a fire or something,” Raph grumbled, and Leo snorted.

Out in the lair, Casey was still facedown on the couch with a pillow over his head and a blanket tossed carelessly over his back, but two turtles now joined him on the other side, Mikey leaning against Donnie’s side, a video game controller slipping from his fingers as he drooled against Donnie’s shell, fast asleep. Donnie too was asleep, his glasses perched low on this face, a book face-down on his chest, the pages bent a little where they caught in the grooves of his plastron, head tilted against the back of the couch, snoring louder than the sound of Mikey’s abandoned game playing music in the background.

Snorting, Raph slipped out from under Leo’s arm, trying to be light on his feet, and waved his hand at his sleeping brothers. “Well, would you look at this? I wish I had a camera. Donnie actually stopping long enough to actually fall asleep this early? I must be dreaming.”

“Maybe April will arrive with a camera. I think Sensi called her before he went to bed…” he trailed off when he heard the sound of the heavy metal back door to the lair swing open and the loud sound of April’s heels clicking against the concrete. “Ah, there she is.”

“Hey guys, how- what the hell happened?” April balked as she caught sight of everyone bandaged up, some asleep on the couch, and Casey face-first in the cushions, buried in linen.

“Speak of the devil,” Raph grinned as both Mikey and Donnie started awake at the sound of April’s shrill panic, Mikey’s controller falling to the ground with a loud clatter, Donnie’s book falling between the cushion and the arm of the couch as he shoved his glasses up his face and reached for his bo staff on instinct. Casey just groaned, his voice muffled by the old and dirty fabric. “All good here, April. We just got back from patrol. We look a little banged up, but it looks much worse than it is, believe you me.”

“I’m not worried about _you_ ,” April said as she made her way over to where Casey was lying on the couch. “I’m worried about the squishy human who doesn’t have thick leathery skin and a shell for protection.”

“To be fair,” Mikey protested where he was leaning his whole weight against Donnie, his face pressed into his arm. “He kinda asked for it.”

“Literally,” Donnie groaned as he rubbed at his neck. “He wouldn’t leave us alone until we agreed to bring him with us.”

Begrudgingly, Casey rolled onto his back and threw his hand over his eyes, kicking with his good leg as April began patting him down for hidden injuries under his clothes. “I’m fine, April. I’m not dead. That’s the only outcome you could ask for.”

“What were you thinking?” April hissed as she flicked him on the forehead.

“That I wanted to have fun for once in my life,” Casey grumbled. “And let me tell you, sweetcheeks, it was one hell of a ride. The most fun I’ve ever had.”

It was almost like they were watching April’s face redden and steam rush out of her ears in her fury. Mikey snuggled deeper into Donnie to try and get further away. “Sweetcheeks?” she sounded aghast, and her fists were clenched to her chest, her eyes cast to the ceiling in her ire. “Sweetcheeks? Oh, Casey Jones, you’re very lucky that you’re laid up covered in bandages right now because I swear to god…”

“In his defence,” Donnie piped up in his flustered, high-pitched voice he used only when he was afraid or tired or really very stressed. “I’ve got him on quite a large amount of painkillers at the moment because he was whining so badly about his knee, so I wouldn’t take anything he says for the next few hours to heart.”

That seemed to placate her a little bit, and she lowered her fists to her sides, though she still didn’t look too pleased. “Whining, huh? I hope he didn’t use too many of your supplies, I know you don’t have much to spare.”

“It’s fine,” Leo interjected. “You’re family. What’s ours is yours.”

Signing, April ran a hand through her hair and smoothed it away from her face, barely reigning in her frustration and managed to create a calmed facade that everyone who knew her could tell was fake. “What am I going to do with you boys?” she said, addressing all five men standing around her, turtles and humans alike. “I’ll get him out of your hair.”

“You mean their shells,” Casey corrected like it was the easiest thing in the world, as April helped him sit up and spin his legs off the couch. “But April, I don’t want to go yet,”

Pursing her lips, April yanked him up by the arms, a little rougher than was necessary, and rolled her eyes at where Leo and Raph were standing. “And here I thought stubbornness was a turtle trait.”

“It must be infectious,” Leo agreed with a rare smile.

“Contagious,” Donnie supplied helpfully, a little lost in his own head. “Contractible. Transmissive.”

Now that she had Casey more-or-less on his feet, April began leading him out of the lair, supporting him on one side and stopping when he stumbled over the uneven ground. “You guys have a good night. Try to rest up. Knowing you, you’ve probably got a big day ahead of you, even as beat up as you are.”

They left the lair with a chorus of, “Bye April!” on their way out, and Raph threw out the customary, “Adios, Knucklehead!” for Casey’s sake, and he flipped him the finger over his shoulder before they turned the corner and exited their home.

But then it was quiet, and the turtles suddenly felt the need to fill in the silence with sound. Donnie did the honours. “Turn around, Raph, I want to see your shell.”

“It’s fine, Big Brain. Leo did good,” Raph waved him off.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Donnie argued.

“Don’t get up,” Mikey mumbled. “You’re so soft and comfy.”

Donnie shoved his glasses up his face again, somewhat impatiently. “Mikey, we’re made of hard keratin and leather. I’m not supposed to be ‘soft’ or ‘comfy’. Maybe I should have checked you out for a suspected concussion.”

Stepping forward, Leo shoved Donnie back down on the couch, and Mikey took the opportunity to lie across his lap in a rather constrictive manner. “No, Don. Not tonight. We’re all tired, and need to get to bed. I’m tired. Raph’s tired. Mikey’s certainly tired. And you’re tired too. So, just go back to sleep, and you can check out my handiwork in the morning, huh?”

Grumbling, Donnie crossed his arms over his chest and slowly gave in under Leo’s ministrations, letting himself be pushed back deeper into the couch. “Go back to sleep? I never _fell_ asleep. I was here the whole time, and I was reading when April walked in, so I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You were totally asleep, bro,” Mikey said from his lap, and Donnie glared down at him under his glasses. 

“You snore like a train going through a tunnel,” Raph agreed. Donnie looked offended. “You were definitely asleep. That’s not a sound someone makes when they’re awake, believe me.”

Scoffing, Donnie looking around in his immediate vicinity for something to throw. He made to reach for the shuriken in Mikey’s belt still around his waist, but Leo placed a hand on his head and held him in place, much to Donnie’s annoyance. “You snore too, you jerk! You sound like you have sleep apnea! I fear for your life every time you _stop_ snoring, and that’s not normal!”

“Please tell me we’re not arguing about who snores the loudest,” Mikey complained. “How about me argue about something more productive, like what pizza toppings to order, or the best martial arts movies of all time, or who has the fastest fingers in the west.”

Leo frowned at him. “The fastest fingers in the west?”

“Yeah. You know, video game stuff.” Mikey explained vaguely and Leo rolled his eyes as Raph and Donnie continued to argue in the background.

“I’m supposed to snore. I’m big. Big people are contractually supposed to snore. What’s your excuse, beanpole?”

“You made that up, you jackass!”

“Enough!” Came a sharp, familiar voice from the back room, masked in exasperation and exhaustion, as Master Splinter woke up from his slumber with all their bickering. “You both snore. It’s almost unbearable, but I love you anyway. Now please, my sons, conclude this discussion and go to bed so I can return to my rest.”

There was a long pause between the brothers until Raph laughed so hard that he doubled over, not worrying about the fresh crack in his shell, and he laughed so loud and so hard that eventually, his brothers had no choice but to join in, in various states of volume and strength, but they all joined in nonetheless.

When Mikey and Donnie finally trudged off to bed, Raph stopped beside Leo and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Thanks for patching me up, Leo. I appreciate it.”

“No worries. Don’t mention it,” Leo said. “And if you want my opinion, Donnie may snore like a train going through a tunnel, but your snoring makes it feel like we’re in the middle of a high-Richter earthquake. No offence, but it’s the truth.”

“Yeah, I know,” Raph chuckled. “I just like riling Donnie up. It’s amusing and entertaining, especially when he gets going like that.”

“I knew it!” Came Donnie’s voice from his bed, and Leo and Raph took an extra moment to themselves to laugh about it.


End file.
